jeffrey dahmer brutally murdered 17 young men and boys. >> once it happened the first time, it just seemed like i had control of my life from there on in. >> his killing spree lasted more than a decade and the horror didn't stop at murder. was there something sexual in the dismemberment of the bodies for you? >> yes, it was a sexual part to that. >> why the campbells? how could a seemingly normal, midwestern boy grow up to commit such terrible crimes? dahmer's parents struggle to

find the answers. >> it's been eternal torment. >> do you feel that you're being blamed? >> yes, i do. >> dahmer agreed to speak with us at the behest of his father, who had just written a revealing book. is there anything in this book that you strongly disagree with? >> yes. >> on the surface, the interview with lionel dahmer was matter of fact. were you holding back your emotions just now? >> yeah. >> but beneath his composure, unbearable pain. >> but they don't realize that i have very deep feelings inside. >> the interview with jeffrey dahmer's mother, joyce, was often contentious. >> i don't mean to argue with you. i have no business doing -- i'm really scared. >> i interviewed jeffrey dahmer and his parents at length in 1994. much of what they shared has never been heard until now. msnbc brings you the never before seen "confessions of a serial killer."

>> thanks for joining us. i'm stone phillips. in february 1994 at the columbia correctional institution in portage, wisconsin, i sat down with serial killer jeffrey dahmer for his first, and as it turned out, his last network television interview. his father, lionel dahmer, had just written a book about his son, and he joined us. jeff, as his father called him, was polite and seemed unnervingly normal. rarely had a serial killer spoken in such detail about his crimes or the possible root causes, but this father and son spoke about both, as did dahmer's mother in a rare interview. as you'll see, even looking back more than a decade later, there

are still no easy answers. >> hi, jeff. >> how are you? >> good to see you. >> good to see you. >> hi, jeff. stone phillips. >> hi, mr. phillips. how are you? >> nice to see you. spending the last few days with your folks. >> great. >> talking about a lot of different things. >> hey, you're lucky that you came up with a day of no snow. it was snowing like crazy all weekend. >> is that right? >> yeah. >> how are things going here for you? >> oh, slow and steady. nothing -- nothing out of the ordinary really. >> you've read the book? >> yes, yes, i read the book. my dad sent it to me about last week and spent all night reading it. i was up all night reading it. it was quite a surprise to me, some parts of it. very interesting. >> in what sense? >> just some of the things that were revealed, caught me off guard.

and just some -- some very big surprises in it for me. >> what was it that caught you off guard? >> some of -- some of his insights into what he thought of me as i was growing up. >> all set? everybody ready? okay, let's all take a deep breath. your dad comes here to visit about once a month, but i get the impression that the two of you don't talk a lot about everything that happened, about the crimes in particular. >> no, we don't discuss that because it's been -- it's been gone over so thoroughly in the papers and in the media that there's just really no point in it, in going in depth, into any in-depth talks about it. we talk about our family, home,

how things used to be, what prison life is here -- is like here now. and try to keep things as light and as upbeat as possible. >> is it hard for you to go back and talk about those things? >> no, not the good things. in fact, it gives me a sense of comfort to talk about the few good times there were in the past. >> you say, the few good times, do you think of your childhood as having been profoundly unhappy? >> no, not profoundly. my childhood wasn't filled with any great tragedies or anything. there were good times and there were bad times. i think it was fairly normal. >> jeff, do you remember your earliest experience and earliest interest, fascination with the inside of animals, where that came from? >> in ninth grade, in biology

class we had the usual dissection of fetal pigs. i took the remains of that home and kept the skeleton of it, and i just started branching out, dogs, cats. i suppose it could have turned into a normal hobby like taxidermy, but it didn't. it veered off into this. why, i don't know. all i know is that i wanted to see what the insides of these animals looked like. >> was there some pleasure in the cutting open of the animal? >> yes, there was. no sexual pleasure, but just a -- it's hard to describe. >> sense of power? sense of control? >> i suppose that's a good way of putting it, yeah, yeah. >> i can sort of see a fascination for, you know, wanting to see or for looking at

the insides of animals, say for the first time. after you did it one time, what more is to be gained by looking at another dog's insides? >> i don't know. >> or the second or the third. >> i don't know. it became a compulsion and it switched from animals to humans. i still don't understand it. i don't know why. >> what would you do with the dead animals, jeff? you would pick the carcasses up from the road and take them back into the woods. >> take them back into the woods. skin them sometimes. slit them, slit them all the way open. look at the organs, feel them. there was a sort of general excitement for me. i don't know why. it was exciting to see. >> one of your dad's biggest questions is, when you began to slip away, when you crossed over into this world of obsession or dark fantasy from which you just

couldn't return, can you pinpoint that? is there a sense for when that really began to happen with you, jeff? >> i think that it was around age 14 or 15. i started having obsessive thoughts of violence intermingled with sex, and it just got worse and worse. i didn't know how to tell anyone about it, so i didn't. i just kept it all inside. >> do you have any sense from where that was coming from? >> no. no, i've talked with a few psychologists about it. they have their theories, but they don't have any concrete answers either. >> do you have a theory? >> no, not really. i don't know where it came from. i probably will never know, but i never dreamed that it would

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jeffrey dahmer was finally caught in 1991 after one of his would-be victims escaped and alerted police. what was discovered in dahmer's apartment was horrifying. body parts in a barrel, a human head in a refrigerator. when he confessed, the gruesome details were almost impossible to comprehend. what was it, jeff, that took you over the edge, do you think, and made you take this from the world of fantasy into reality? >> from 15 on, i had this reoccurring fantasy of meeting a

hitch-hiker on the road, and of taking him hostage and doing what i wanted with him. about three years later, i was 18 years old, driving home. i saw this hitchhiker about a mile from my house. thought to myself, should i stop and pick him up or should i just keep on going? and i wished i had kept on going but i didn't. turned around, picked him up, and that's when -- that's when it -- the night that it became a reality. it just seems so bizarre to me that this obsession that i had been thinking about and wanting just, all the parts are there and they make it possible to make it happen. >> what happened after you took him to the house? >> the house was empty. my mother was up in chippewa

falls with her family. and my dad was living in a rented motel about five miles away due to the divorce. and i had pretty much had the place to myself. i was drinking a lot during that time. and just, i don't know, looking for something to -- some way to find some fulfillment, some pleasure. and i acted on my fant seiasies that's where everything went wrong. >> this was the summer of 1978 when you took your first victim. >> right. once it happened the first time, it just seemed like it had control of my life from there on in. the second occurrence was 1984, roughly. and i met this guy at one of the bars downtown, milwaukee bars.

we went back to the hotel. just planning on getting drunk. i had put some sleeping pills in his drink to render him unconscious and was just going to spend the night with him. when i woke up in the morning, my forearms were bruised and his chest was bruised and blood was coming out of his mouth. he was hanging over the side of the bed. and i have no memory of beating him to death, but i must have. and that's when it all started again. >> and once it started again, you found it impossible to stop? >> right. that's when the obsession went into full swing. >> did you ever tell yourself, i have to stop this? i must stop doing this? >> yes. >> when it was going on?

>> after the second time, it seemed like the compulsion to do it was too strong, and i didn't even try to stop it after that. but after -- before the second time, things had been building up gradually. going to bookstores, going to the bars, the gay bars, bath clubs. when that wasn't enough, buying sleeping pills and using it on various guys in the bath clubs. it just escalated, slowly but surely. and after the second time, which was not planned, it was out of control. it felt like it was out of control. >> where did sex enter in to the killings, jeff? >> it was a big part of it. my only objective was to find the best-looking guy that i could. their sexual preference didn't matter to me.

>> did their race matter to you? >> no, their race didn't matter to me. the first two young men were white. the third young man was american indian. the fourth and fifth were hispanic. so, no, race had nothing to do with it. it was just their looks. >> was there something sexual in the dismemberment of the bodies for you? >> as time went on, yes, i did get -- there was a sexual part to that. i started saving the skeletons and preserving other parts. and one thing led to another. it took more and more deviant-type behaviors to satisfy my urges, and so, it just spiraled out of control.

>> why the cannibalism? >> it made me feel like they were a permanent part of me. besides the just mere curiosity of what it would be like, it made me feel like they were part of me and it gave me a sexual satisfaction to do that. >> was it the killing that excited you or is it what happened after the killing? >> no, the killing was just a means to an end. that was the least satisfactory part. i didn't enjoy doing that. that's why i tried to create living zombies with uritic acid in the drill. but it never worked. no, the killing wasn't the objective. i just wanted to have the person under my complete control, not having to consider their wishes, being able to keep them there as

long as i wanted. it's not easy to say that, but that's what the motive was. >> where did that need for control come from? do you have any idea? >> i don't know. maybe i felt i had no control as a child or a young adult. and that got mixed in with my sexuality, and i ended up -- doing what i did was my way of feeling in complete control, at least for that situation. creating my own little world where i had the final say, finding the best looking guy that i could and having total mastery over him for as long as i wanted. lust played a big part of it. control and lust. that was the motive right there. >> a lot of this came out in the course of the trial.

obviously, both of you sat through this. have the two of you sat down and talked about these things before? >> no, not in depth. >> this is the first time you're talking about these things with your dad here? >> i've talked about it at great lengths with psychiatrists, court-appointed psychiatrists, psychologists, but not with my family. >> we learned everything at the trial and then the confessions and that sort of thing, after the fact. >> the two of you never really communicated all that much, did you, father and son? >> not on any deep, deep level, no. we talked about superficial things. never really had a real deep heart-to-heart talk about what was going on inside our own minds. i was always a very private person. i didn't like to open up and share anything with anyone. i like to keep my thoughts to myself. >> why do you think that was?

>> because from about 15 years on up, a great deal of my thoughts were basically unshareable with anyone. so i just closed myself off and put on a mask of normalcy. >> coming up -- were you surprised about your dad? >> very surprised. i suppose everyone has their secret thoughts. woman: everyone in the nicu -- all the nurses wanted to watch him when he was there 118 days. everything that you thought was important to you changes in light of having a child that needs you every moment.

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lionel, had just written a book as part of his own painful journey to try and understand how his son became a serial killer. despite regular visits to the prison, father and son had never spoken about many of the topics covered in the book, until our interview. you've read the book. >> right. >> he called it a father's story. pretty simple title. >> right. >> not a simple story, though. >> no, not a simple story. not one that was easy for me to read. but i'm glad he wrote it. >> did it hurt? was it painful to read? >> yes, it was painful. some parts of it were, for me, were even fun to read. there were good parts. it wasn't all negative. >> was it emotional for you reading the book? >> yes, it was. >> tell me, what kind of feelings did you have reading it? >> deep regret. sorrow. i guess those are the two main

emotions. >> is there anything in this book that you strongly disagree with? >> yes. i disagree with the description of me as being so incredibly shy and introverted. because maybe that's the way my dad saw me, because there was so much tension in the home that i really didn't feel like being up and happy a lot of the times. but with my friends in school, i had a good time. we had good, you know, good social life. and so, i wasn't so extremely reclusive and self-centered as it portrays me. >> does it surprise you to hear jeff say that he did not think of himself and never did

as being so shy? >> it did surprise me. maybe my perception was accentuated to the extreme. >> but you do recall as age 6 that you became more aware of tensions in the home? >> oh, yeah. that's the time i really, really remember noticing that things weren't quite right. >> so, it wasn't so much in a shyness as much as it was wanting to withdraw from tension and arguments and problems in the house. >> that's how i saw it, yeah. i sort of lived in my own little fantasy world when things got too heated in the house pehold. and i carried that over for years, i guess. >> and was there violence in that fantasy world? >> no, not -- >> early on? >> not the type that showed itself later, no. it was just -- just my own little world where i had control. >> was anger a part of it for you, jeff?

>> i had some anger. probably every kid has some anger, you know, about their childhood. it really wasn't -- it wasn't a terrible childhood, though. you know, there were a lot of good times. it wasn't a really terrible time. >> so, pat theories about you as a serial killer striking out to get back at your dad, for instance, don't ring true? >> all bologna. no, it has no truth in it. the only motive that there ever was, was to completely control a person, a person that i found physically attractive, and keep them with me as long as possible, even if it meant just keeping a part of them. >> did you know before you read this book that your dad had his own obsessions and fantasies that he had thought about, that he had dreamed of committing

murder, that he had had an obsession with fire and with explosives? >> no, that's -- i don't think that's the type of thing one asks one's dad. >> were you surprised to read that about your dad? >> very surprised, yeah. i didn't know what to think about it. i suppose that everyone has their secret thoughts, and so, it was somewhat of a shock. >> do you feel grateful that your father wrote this book, or do you feel put off by it? i mean, i'm just curious about your overall reaction to it. do you feel -- is the book an invasion, do you think, or is it -- >> no, i feel nothing but pride for him for writing the book, and having the courage to bear his soul when he didn't have to. he didn't have to get involved with trying to sort of, you know, help me out and support me and be an emotional support for

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i'm milissa rehberger. the faa is working to bring air traffic control back to normal in chicago. hundreds of flights have been canceled after an employee lit a fire at an air traffic facility. the driver of a semi that jumped a median and crashed into a bus in oklahoma has told police that he was distracted. four college softball players were killed in that crash. several more were injured. and a u.s. doctor infected with ebola has arrived at a washington, d.c., area hospital for treatment. back to our program. jeffrey dahmer kept many secrets, even before he killed his first victim.

while it's not unusual for teenagers to keep some things from their parents, dahmer's father was tormented by the idea that perhaps he had missed a key sign of what was to come and the chance to stop him. but jeffrey dahmer wasn't sure he would have revealed anything and was angered by the way some people had blamed his parents. did you ever consider talking to your parents, to your dad about homosexuality? is that something that you felt you could ever raise? >> no, because early on, i really didn't know that much about it myself. all i knew was that it was something that was to be kept hush-hush, not talked about, not even thought about. so, i just kept it all within me and never, never talked about sexual issues at all, really, with anybody. >> do you think if you had been able to talk about that in a more open way with your dad, for

instance, that it would have helped, might have broken this veil of secrecy and enabled you to keep yourself from going down that road? >> i don't know exactly what, if anything, would have ever kept me from going down that road. talking about it, i don't think would have made that much difference. because like i said, there were things going on in my head that i would have never opened up and talked about with anybody. >> your dad says he never realized how deeply troubled you were, because he just thought you were shy the way he had been, shy as a boy. do you think the signs were there and he just missed them? >> no, i don't think so. because i had thoughts, i had fantasies, but there was no outward show of anything that was wrong. >> you were pretty good at keeping it all inside. >> right, i kept it all inside. i didn't share any of my thoughts or emotions with anybody.

>> so, how would i ever know? >> no, you never saw any of it, as far as i know. >> i did not really hear from anyone about any of these activities, and that's what really strikes me now, is if i would, if i would have known, what would i have done about it? i think i would have done a lot about it. >> i feel it's wrong for people who commit crimes to try to shift the blame onto somebody else, onto their parents or onto their upbringing or living circumstances. i think that's just a cop-out. and my parents, my relatives had no knowledge of what i was doing. they're absolutely not responsible for any of it in any way, and i take full responsibility. >> but you understand that what you did would lead your father to ask himself all kinds of questions?

>> that's true. i understand that. >> where did i go wrong? was there something that i could have said or done to have prevented this? >> right. >> did i in some way create or contribute to the terrible acts my son committed? >> i understand that. i just get angry with other people who think that they have a right to somehow try to blame my parents for what happened. that's not right at all. no one has the right to do that because they're totally innocent. they had no knowledge of it. and that angers me. >> but parents, just naturally -- i mean any parent that really cares, they just, first of all say, oh, gee, i feel guilty, you know. there's just feelings of guilt. what happened? what did i do? what could i have done? so, that's a normal parental reaction. >> your dad has wondered about all kinds of things, from the medication that your mom was on

during her pregnancy to the fact that you were exposed to violent arguments in the home from an early age and continuing, to the possibility that he might have passed on some genetic propensity or obsession or violent behavior. does any of that ring true to you? >> i can see why he'd wonder about those things, but as far as i'm concerned, they're all excuses, because i didn't feel accountable to anybody. i didn't feel that i had to face what i had done ever. and so, you have to -- there comes a point where a person has to be accountable for what he's done, can't go around making excuses, blaming other people or other things. so i, alone, am the one who's responsible for what's happened. >> let me ask, when did you first feel that everyone is accountable for their actions? >> well, thanks to you for

sending that creation science material. because i always believed the lie that evolution is truth, the theory that evolution is truth, that we all just came from the slime, and when we died, you know, that was it, there was nothing. so, the whole theory cheapens life. and i started reading books about how -- that show how evolution is just a complete lie. there is no basis in science to uphold it. and i've since come to believe that the lord jesus christ is the true creator of the heavens and the earth. it didn't just happen and i have accepted him as my lord and savior, and i believe that i, as well as everyone else, will be accountable to him. >> growing up, did you feel that

you were accountable to your dad or to your mom as the authority figure in the house? >> yes, i did. yes, i did. i mean, they didn't let me run wild. they were -- they disciplined me. and so, i felt accountable to them. but afterwards, after i left the home, that's when i started wanting to sort of create my own little world where i could be the one who had the complete control, where i didn't have to bow to anyone else's demands, and i just took it way too far. >> lionel. >> at that period of time, i had drifted away from a belief in a supreme being. and i never, as a result, passed along the feeling that we are all accountable in the end. he owns us.

and that basic concept is very fundamental to all of us. >> you feel that the absence, at least for a while, of a strong religious faith and belief -- >> for some years. >> -- may have prevented you from instilling some of that in jeff? >> that's right. >> is that how you feel? >> yes, i think that had a big part to do with it. i mean, if you don't -- if a person doesn't think that there is a god to be accountable to, then what's the point of trying to modify your behavior, to keep it within an acceptable ranges? that's how i thought anyway. and i've since come to believe that the lord jesus christ is truly god, the father, the son and the holy spirit. they're the only true god. coming up, a mother's pain. >> it's almost like i don't have a right to mourn or grieve

because there are all these families who will never speak to their children again. >> more never before seen "confessions of a serial killer" when we come back. it is... this is where i met your grandpa. right under this tree. ♪ (man) some things are worth holding onto. they're hugging the tree. (man) that's why we got a subaru. or was it that tree? (man) introducing the all-new subaru outback. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. here we go, here we go, here we go. ♪ fifty omaha set hut ♪ losing feeling in my toes ♪ ♪ nothing beats that new car smell ♪ ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪

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from her son in a different state with a different last name. but joyce flint still felt deeply connected to her eldest child and was grieving for her own loss. we all think about victims' parents in a case like jeffrey's, but we don't often think about the parents whose child committed crimes like this. what's it been like for you? >> well, it's been horrendous. it's -- i don't know if i have words to explain something that was never seen or forecast or expected. i learned about jeff in the same way everyone else did.

a friend called me and told me it had been on television in another state. and so, half an hour later, i turned the television on and saw his picture. and at that point, what do you do? you can't believe what's happening, and you cry and you grab a friend. and that's what i did. what was most unusual about it was that i didn't know. i hadn't been in contact with jeff, although i tried. and yet, no one had ever let me know that jeff had been in any kind of trouble at all during the years. >> when did the full impact of all of this hit you? >> i don't know if it has yet. i don't know if it ever will.

i mean, i don't know if i'll ever be able to -- how does anyone? the full impact, it's the rest of our lives. it's -- i have another son, a younger son. for the rest of his life he will have to find a way to be strong and deal with this. >> has this followed him? >> yes, it has. but he's doing very well. he's finished an undergraduate degree and is working and very successful and visits his brother. it's a very difficult thing to say, stone, one of the hardest things for me to say is how much i can't believe this happened and how much i love jeff when

i'm very much aware that -- it's almost like i don't have a right to mourn or grieve because there are all these families who will never, ever speak to their children again. it's a very strange set of circumstances. i still have my son jeff now to talk to. and we have established a wonderful relationship and i hope i don't hurt all of the people who've lost their children by saying that. >> what was he like as a young boy before school? >> wonderful. i thought he was wonderful.

he was fun. we did all of the normal things that people do. it's hard to be asked questions that go back 30-some years when you never expected that anything but good would happen in your family. >> were there ever any early signs of trouble with jeff? >> if there had -- >> looking back on it today, were there? >> no. what would you look for? if i'd seen something that had been a clue of any kind, i'd like to think that i would have done something about it immediately. no, there wasn't anything unusual about jeff.

he was a normal young boy. >> jeff's first grade teacher referred to him as inordinately shy and profoundly unhappy. >> he didn't seem inordinately shy to me. he seemed -- he didn't like school. he had a very difficult year that year, first grade, moving from where he'd lived. i was pregnant with his baby brother, so -- >> did he seem profoundly unhappy? >> no. well, he -- no. when you say profoundly unhappy, there wasn't any clue that there was anything other than, this was a little rather shy child who had to go school and mingle and be sociable and that wasn't his thing. coming up, more with jeffrey dahmer's mother. >> telling you the truth, the very best i can, there wasn't anything unusual. >> but first, his father looks

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>> how would you describe jeff as a young child? was he happy? was he out going as a 2, 3, 4-year-old? >> he was quite out going up until maybe age 3, 3 1/2, 4, somewhere in there. he developed a double hernia. >> that was pretty troubling for him physically, wasn't it? >> yeah. i think this whole thing is conjecture at this point. it might have been along with

other incidents in his life, might have been one of the trigger points. i mean, you know, the old freudian castration complex might come to bear here. and i guess psychoanalysts would really have a heyday with this because, you know, he was concerned about losing his penis. he asked his mother if he had lost it, if it had been cut off. now -- >> which is something he later did to his, or at least some of his victims. >> that's true, yes. >> one thing that many serial killers have in common is a history of sexual abuse. was jeff sexually abused at any time? >> no, never. >> was not abused by anyone in the home? >> no. >> sexually? >> no. >> can you even begin to describe what it's been like for

you as the parent of someone who has committed crimes of this nature? >> well, it's been eternal torment. in the privacy of my own room -- see, people generally look at me as sort of not emotional, and i come off as maybe a little bit remote because of that. >> well, you were holding back your emotions just now. >> yeah, but they don't realize that i have very deep feelings inside. >> an armchair psychologist would argue that the fact that you are so unemotional about all of this only signifies that inside there may be very powerful emotions. >> that's right.

>> the person who keeps things so tightly under control is the person who is really afraid of losing control of some very powerful feelings inside. true in your case? >> that's probably true, yeah. yeah, i would say that's a fair statement. >> today when you think about the obsessions that were consuming jeff as a teenager, they aren't altogether unfamiliar, are they? >> i think inferiority goes -- you know, lack of control or a feeling of no control over your environment or kids around you, i think inferiority sort of goes along with shyness. jeff was shy. i was shy. then comes the thought of control. you just don't have the control of your environment. and my early infatuation or obsession was with fire. just about burned down my neighbor's garage one time, just starting a little fire. >> when you were a teenager, you

had dreams of committing murder yourself. >> yeah, let me clarify that. >> please. >> i was shy and, you know, felt lack of control and so forth and i was bullied, okay? there were a lot of bullies in our neighborhood. and almost always after i was either physically or in some other way harassed by bullies, i would wake up, say, the next morning or the next -- or the morning after that, shortly after that, and i would for just, say about 30 seconds or so, have this feeling that i was -- that i had hurt someone. that i had maybe hurt them badly, that i had killed them. but it was a vague sort of a feeling, and it happened just every so often. and after attacks by

neighborhood kids. >> the question is, why does a father murder in his dreams and a son murder in real life? >> in real life. >> in mentioning these things and writing about them in your book, you seem to believe that you may have passed on some kind of genetic propensity for obsession or destructive behavior. that might be one factor in this puzzle of why your son did what he did. >> it's something to be considered, you know, in the broad spectrum of possibilities. the problem with just calling it genetic predisposition or genetic predestinarianism is that it's not really a -- scientific, it's not true, with respect to personality.

but it's being investigated. >> what led him to cross the line, to go over the edge? >> i don't know. but i guess i would just conjecture that whatever it was, it probably goes back further to whatever got hooked into his sexuality. i do believe strongly that those hormones are the most powerful thing on earth, almost. and i do believe that -- >> a sexual drive, it was the sexual drive that led him to murder and dismember? >> mm-hmm. that's my personal belief. and however it got bizarrely hooked into entrails is beyond me, but i believe that if it could be unearthed as to what that -- how that happened or what that derivation was, then we'd have the answer. coming up, the dahmers'

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